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Places for a house party: four of the best

Priory House Lincolnshire If you are partial to a bit of vintage-chic baronial grandeur, consider the characterful, Georgian Grade II listed Priory House in the village of Long Bennington in the Peak District. Reached via a sweeping, tree-lined drive, the house is by far the largest in the village and a stay here feels like a real event. The sculptor Roger Lee and the fashion designer Carole Lee bought the place in 1986, restored it and eventually opened a section as a four-room holiday home. Today it is a grand house that mixes oak beams, sweeping staircases and elegant antiques with Indian art and textiles, leopard-print curtains and shop window mannequins dressed in vintage ball gowns. There are three en suite bedrooms in the main house and a further double in the Elizabethan longhouse, connected to it by a conservatory. The Lees live at the back of the house and keep themselves to themselves unless you opt for B&B, in which case they will appear each morning to serve up a hearty Lincolnshire breakfast in the dining-room. The details Priory House sleeps up to eight in four bedrooms. From £300 per night or £2,100 per week (holidaylettings.co.uk.rentals/long-bennington/144856
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